Recently, I've become a beginner to a sewing machine. Yes, I say beginner to a sewing machine because I've not yet attempted sewing a real thing, unless you consider practice hems on random pieces of material to be legitimate sewing. Because I certainly don't, at least not after I've seen what my mom can do. So I officially became her apprentice this past weekend (bless her), but while she was sewing an actual clothing item, I was cutting up another one: no sewing required.
This is possibly the easiest way to create a hi-lo out of a maxi dress that you'll ever see, and after extensive research, I decided to try and duplicate it on a dress of my own that I thrifted for just $4.99. It was an unknown brand name, which made me feel slightly better about ripping it up. It was a cotton knit dress (t-shirt material), so it needed no hemming. Another plus for an inexperienced sewer.
1. I am not truly this shape, I was wearing a rather fluffy (adorable!) dress underneath.
2. Pay no attention to that bar beyond in the picture. I swear it's all been collected over time (at least, that's what we can all believe, right?)
So as you can tell from my un-makeuped face and weird thumbs down, I was not thrilled with this dress prior to cutting it up. Quite honestly, my legs are not long enough to wear maxi dresses without serious heels, which I fall over in. Not only that, it was very unflattering for my shape: thus the cut-out.
I found that the easiest way to cut a hi-lo is to just jump in and do it. Try the dress on, and the decide where to make your cut line mark. I used a pencil since my dress is so light, but I also got a white material pencil from Jo-Anns Fabric (they also come in black) in the case of darker colored clothing.
And here's me holding my pencil up to where I'm about to make my mark. In case you hadn't guessed that already.
Make sure you pencil in dark enough where you're cutting, it may take a few times, but patience is virtue--or so I've heard.
Next, decide on your shape. I just drew the most common hi-lo form, but I'm intrigued by the idea of an irregular hi-lo. I may have just spawned another blog idea. Flip the dress so that the seems are pinched on both sides, and the dress is lying flat, but sideways. When you cut out your hi-lo, you're cutting from the front, down the side. You know when you used to cut out construction paper hearts in grade school, and you'd fold the paper in half and cut out a weird pear-shape and when you unfolded it, it would be a heart? Imagine that, but in material form.
It's a bit hard to see, but my line comes down in an S-shape. I later refined this (of course I have no picture) to exclude most of the seam down the side and cut it out immediately, you don't want the seam to interfere in your hi-lo line. The sooner you cut it out, the better.
Once you've done this--begin cutting!
Advice: I suggest investing in a pair of material-cutting scissors. I've tried this on other fabrics without them, and I've either had an incredible crooked line, or ridiculous fraying where I did manage to make a cutout. Trust me, it's worth it.
This is what mine looked like during cutting and after:
If need be, you can go back and fix any rough edges. Be careful not to over-cut. From the side, it should look something like this:
You can see where I attempted to cut the seam out about halfway down so it didn't interfere with the hi-lo dip.
And laid out straight:
(I'm pointing to the top of the hi-lo cut, it's a little tough to see with all of those stripes!)
My next goal is to make a rounded hi-lo instead of a square one, I think they look better and flow a lot nicer. This will eventually become my beach dress, and I'm debating sprucing it up a bit--but for now, here's the finished product:
And from the side:
And the back:
A few things I could have done differently: left the back longer instead of taking off 3 inches from the hem, curved my cut so that it didn't create a square hi-lo, or trimmed up the front a bit so that my line is more straight. Eventually before I wear it, I'll probably trim it up. But for now, you get the basic idea of how to create your own.
Happy hi-lo'ing!
